cogs&Beats
by Suk-fong
Summary: Heartbeats count moments. Cogs aren't hearts at all Vampire AU


Finnick Odair is good with secrets.

It's an occupational hazard as part of Snow's VTF, a highly secretive, highly efficient job that is both thankless, something he can't talk about, and pays well.

He's the bait. Well he trades with Cashmere, depending on who they're hunting, but he's usually the bait.

His genetics have blessed with a great bone structure and brilliant looks; he himself is the reason why he is still alive.

That's a secret.

He lives in Panem, where his closest friends are a pair of twins who have very deep separation anxiety that caused them to come to the one school that accepted both of them.

Gloss is special, he's never seen someone get bitten and by sheer force of will, reject the bite.

That's another secret.

Beetee explained it once, when he was watching his blood cells on the screen do cellular things. It's genetics, all of it.

The ones who get bitten have an enzyme, he's called it the Tribute enzyme, because it marks the people born who will either change or reject. Those who reject have an antibody the scientist calls the Victor card.

Gloss didn't have the Victor antibody, and when his sister donated blood in a desperate attempt to keep her brother, he rejected the blood.

Snow was going to kill him, the separation from his sister is what caused him to reject. He's under strict surveillance.

That's not a secret.

He was on a field trip with his high school swim team to Panem when he was fourteen, when the bus was hijacked, and he was bitten. Everyone else died.

Beetee told him, that he had three times the amount of Victor antibodies in his system. More than anyone in the world.

That's another secret.

But the biggest secret Finnick Odair has, is that there are vampires in Panem.

And he is the one who hunts them.

* * *

'Do you always have to be naked?' Brutus, one of the oldest hunters asks in the van on the way back from trying to lure out a nest.

'Vamps like sex.' He says easily, sipping the under sugar coffee that Jo, the newest hunter got him reluctantly. 'Sex works best if you're naked.'

'So you're bloodsucker sexual?' Jo, at eighteen asks darkly from the backseat, he glances at her from the rear view mirror.

She had been left for dead-playing possum Jo had said, her sire a tiny female with long hair had thought she hadn't the Tribute enzyme-, and no one, not ever Gloss thought she had V bodies.

He had surprised everyone when she woke up cursing in the morgue, promising to kill the vampire, and had promptly cut her long dark hair into a small pixie cut. Long hair reminded her too much of the vampire.

'No.' He says casually. 'But during sex the heart pumps faster, and that's like E to a vamp.'

There's a hard look in Brutus's eyes, but the older man doesn't say anything. He's thankful for that.

Brutus had to kill his own wife, who had turned on their honeymoon. It was their first anniversary when he dusted her.

'So you go to a bar, and fuck some girl in the bathroom, and then boom vamp?'

'We're already addicting.' Brutus says, taking a left and heading into the Capitol, where the hunt will be logged, they'll be debrief and sent to Cecelia who will do their med checkup and then they'll be free to go. 'Something about our blood giving off pheromones or some shit, add a heartbeat. None can resist.'

'What about the big ones?'

Brutus pauses, unsure of how much he should tell the new hunter. 'The Alphas? There are certain types of blood that are hard to resist, certain scents and shit.'

'Like the girl in the morgue now.'

'Hospital.' Finnick corrects, 'We know she's alive. We're just waiting for her to wake up.'

'Whatever. The girl's blood is Alpha bait?'

'Yeah.' Brutus nods, typing in his identification code to let them in. 'And when she wakes up, her blonde boyfriend will be dead.'

* * *

It's almost seven in the morning, when he finally gets to leave the Capitol and go back to his condo.

He's yawning, tossing his keys and missing the kitchen counter when he sees her.

She's in a sundress, her dark hair uncombed, and her skin alabaster. She looks like a porcelain doll, with wide marble eyes devoid of emotion. If he pressed his head against her chest, he would not hear a heartbeat but the sound of a rusted gear filtering sand.

She sits on the arm of his sofa, her legs folded underneath her and her hands on her lap daintily.

_finnick_, Annie says, _i miss you._

Finnick Odair deals in secrets, but his deepest secret of all, is that he is in love with a vampire.

He never knew her, not really. She was two years younger, and his best friend's little sister. Hell, he'd completely forgotten her, until three years ago; he had to stop a vampire- Wiress Annie had told him, on her first visit, from biting the eighteen year old.

He didn't.

They brought her to morgue, sure that the petite girl would be dead in a matter of hours, and when he saw her driver's license, he was overcome with guilt, unsure of how he would be able to comfort Noah.

That was, until Wiress stole Annie's body from the morgue.

Annie is an Alpha, capable of detecting the Tribute enzymes, and able to give the bite that changes.

'Why are you here?' He asks, his heartbeat flutters, and the small smile on Annie's face tells him she's heard it.

_i heard there was a hunt tonight_, Annie tells him unblinkingly, _you killed one of haymitchs_

'Are you here to yell at me?' Finnick asks tiredly. Lately, when Annie visits him, it is now for coffee and conversation, or for even sex.

She comes to warn him, tell him about the grumbling from the vampires. She knows his hunting schedule, and has caused him several wild goose chase, where he, and Brutus follow her all around Panem, as an Alpha dead is worth more than just a regular vampire.

_madge_

'What?'

_you killed madge tonight gale her mate is furious_

'So?' Annie explained it once, the concept of mate. It goes beyond soul mate. It's someone whose heart beats in the same rhythm as your own.

When he said she didn't have a heartbeat, Annie had flashed her teeth. They weren't like traditional vampires, the two long canines.

No it was rows and rows of canines, built for piercing the toughest skin.

He had never seen a more terrifying site.

_gale is calling for war coin wants a revolution_ Annie says and her smile is gone.

She looks cold now, like she is carved from ice and stone, ancient and ageless at the same time.

_i cant protect you anymore_

'I don't need your protection Annie.' It's bitter, and it hangs between them like fog.

Annie's goose chases have caused the deaths of seventy individuals. All of their names are tattooed on his chest, same as the ones he couldn't save.

One hundred and fifty-five people are memorialized on his body. Annie has traced their names with feigning sadness.

Vampires don't feel the same emotions humans do; they feel echoes of it, distance. They cannot grieve, they cannot love.

They understand the physical, not the emotional.

Annie is not in love with him. She's physically incapable.

But sometimes, on his nights off, when she's nestle in between his arms and he can forget she doesn't radiate heat, he can pretend she is listening to his heartbeat, and not imaging stopping it and drinking his blood as if it were wine.

_the next time i see you will be your death_ Annie says softly, _in her silken voice that is already soft spoken._

'You'll be the one who kills me.' It's not a question, merely a statement. He's long since known that Annie will kill him, he's been more interested in when.

Her marble eyes lock onto his, and it feels like eternity in the four time his heart beats, before he blinks and she is gone.

* * *

True to Annie's words, there is a war.

Attacks nightly and thousands of people have died. He isn't quite sure the exact number, but the secrecy the vampires have been using for centuries has been pulled back.

Bodies found drained, piles of ashes by corpses. It's a nightmare.

'And you know what fucking sucks,' Gloss says taping his knuckles, 'They just having to fucking bite someone to kill them.'

If one doesn't have the Tribute enzymes, they die automatically.

He nods, his trident twirling as he scans the skyline.

There's a disturbance, a struggle.

He takes off running, his boots hitting the pavement, until he finds a man crumpled on the ground, like used tissue. The street light looks like a spotlight on him, and he freezes.

Gloss is right behind him, sword drawn, before he recognizes the vampire.

'Fuck.' Gloss inhales.

It is Annie, her fingers curled, and her nails shredding the man's chest. She is barefoot, and her sundress, almost shapeless. When she looks up, her lips are stained crimson, and her dress has received a red collar seeped in blood.

Her marble eyes refract the light like a cat, and she stands delicately under the light.

She has never looked more feral, more human and more beautiful than she does under the streetlight in her dress of blood.

She stares at him, and he stares back.

Gloss shifts his weight, not knowing what to do.

And suddenly, Annie turns and runs.

He chases her.

* * *

His lungs burn, and every time he thinks he can catch her, Annie twirls out of reach, her sundress flaring out behind her.

She stops shortly, on the outskirts of Panem.

It hits him then, than Annie wanted him to find her, wanted another chase, and even now was protecting him.

_theyre all dead_

'Who are?'

_your friends the hunters_

'No.' He says coldly, 'No they aren't.'

_haymitch mags enobaria wiress chaff and peeta came out with me._

He doesn't know who Peeta is, but Annie has named all the Alphas, the most powerful vampires.

'Why?' It's a desperate question, he's not expecting an answer. 'Why are you doing this?'

_you hunt us like were animals why are you so surprised wed fight back_

'You kill Annie. Innocent people.'

_you kill cows for steak_

'It's not the same.'

_why not_

'Cows aren't human.'

_neither are you your heart beats too fast for resting heartbeats youre faster stronger than humans you arent human_

'I'm not a vampire.'

Annie pauses, staring at him like she's never seen him before.

_i wish you were_

She moves fast, faster than he expected, but he knows her. He's spent three years falling in love with her, knowing how she thinks, and knowing how she moves.

His body may not be able to keep up with her movements, but he can predict.

Her teeth sink into his throat, while his trident pierces her chest, like it's a pillow. The three prongs on the other side of her body.

Finnick Odair is good with secrets.

His last secret is Annie was what he was trying to say when he died.


End file.
